Thru-hiker Backpacks Part II

Just following up on my post from last week on Thru-hiker Backpacks. This was part of a large study I bagan in 2007 on Appalachian Trail Thru-hikers. Over 540 long-distance hikers, with more than a million collective trail miles were part of this study.

First let’s take a look at the Packs by Brand graph. Bear in mind that about 84% of the responses were from folks hiking from 2000 or later. I’ll get into that in a bit…

Let me explain how these numbers were broken down. This graph includes all responses to the question “What model and brand of pack did you carry?” There were 439 completed responses, many of which needed to be cleaned up before they could be sorted and analyzed (misspellings, etc.) Many responses only listed the manufacturer of the pack, but not the model, so I analyzed the data with this in mind.

I sorted all brands, then filtered for all brands with less than 5 responses. These filtered responses make up the “Other” (34 responses) category, which includes brands like Jack Wolfskin(2), Coleman (1), and the venerable US military ALICE pack (2.) The “Switchers” category (27 responses) is composed of all the folks that started with one type/brand of pack, then switched packs during their thru-hike. These responses had no real pattern (external to internal, bought a Gregory, etc), so I’ve split these responses from the others in order to keep the data as clean as possible.

I’d like to further break down some of the numbers concerning type of packs while getting into more into brand specifics and preferences. As I mentioned before, all the packs in this dataset prior to 1982 were external frame packs. This shouldn’t be all that surprising, as internal frame packs were not commonly available commercially until the mid-late 70’s. Fifteen thru-hikers in this study completed their hikes from 1969-1982. All of these hikers used external frame packs, and of these, seven used a pack made by Kelty. It’s been said by more experienced hikers than I (*ahem*) that you couldn’t swing a cat on the Appalachian Trail in the seventies without hitting a Kelty Tioga, and this data seems to bear that out.

The shift toward internal frame packs starts in the mid-eighties, and continues rapidly from there. Overall, about 73% of all thru-hikers used and internal frame pack, with internals (43) doubling the number of externals (20) from 1985-1999. Kelty was still the largest manufacturer of external frames, with a smattering of Jansport, Camp Trails, and other external frame packs filling in.

From 1985-1999, internal frame packs came from a number of manufacturers. Dana Design’s (12 packs) Terraplane, Glacier, and humongous Astralplane were joined by Gregory’s (10 packs) Palisade, Reality, and Shasta packs. Lowe Alpine brought some of the first internal frame packs to market, and five thru-hikers from this timeframe used their packs.

A number of new companies came onto the market around 2000 with newer pack designs. There’s been a decided trend toward lighter packs, and in many cases, smaller capacities. Packs made by ULA-Equipment, GoLite, Osprey, Arc’Teryx, Granite Gear, and Gregory either came on the market during this time period or shifted their efforts toward the nebulous direction of “ultralight.” A popular pack in the early nineties was Dana Design Terraplane, weighing in around seven pounds and 5,800 cubic inches of capacity. By comparison, in 2005 many thru-hikers were carrying a Gregory Z Pack (3,300 cubic inches, 3.25 pounds.) One thing I want to look into is whether or not hikers are actually carrying overall lighter loads, and if so, has their daily mileage increased as a result. I’ll get more into that as I process the numbers.

The Most Popular Pack on the Appalachian Trail

I started my data collection for this study at Trail Days (May, 2007) and continued to collect responses through September 2007. As such, the last year for completed thru-hikes in this study was 2006, although many 2007 hikers submitted their surveys during their thru-hikes. Pack preferences come and go, but the Granite Gear Vapor Trail was the most popular pack among Appalachian Trail thru-hikers based on the 2006 and 2007 data. About 15% of the hikers (14) in the 2006-2007 cohort group reported using the Vapor Trail model specifically, although a majority of the hikers just submitted the brand of pack they were using.

Rather than concentrate on the specific model of pack, I believe what is more telling is the overall trend toward lighter, smaller packs. ULA Equipment’s P1 and P2 packs, Osprey’s Atmos series, Gregory’s Z and G packs, and GoLite’s offerings were all strongly represented. The Appalachian Trail’s first thru-hiker,  Earl Schaffer, used a small, frameless army rucksack back in 1948 and carried a light load by anyone’s standards. Maybe the more things change, the more they stay the same?

What kind of pack do you carry? What’s your “perfect” pack? I love to hear from ya’ll, and feel free to contact me with any questions.